Tonight's Poet Corner: Wilted Honeysuckle Rose

Wilted Honeysuckle Rose
by Belinda Roddie

We used to dance to the jazz that
would play on the portable radio. All
the warblers and the crooners serenaded
us behind microphones - thin, frail

bodies of carbon and metal and webbed
feet wiring, Edison's fingers grasping the
vocal cords of baritones and tenor
troubadours, balladeers and minstrels
accompanied by a saxophone or piano.

Now, when I kiss you, your mouth is
full of static. I spit the incoherent fuzz
out like chunks of plastic and tin, wash
my tongue out with silicon and copper
connecting notes to digital symphonies.
You don't listen to the standards

anymore - you just sit in your crackling
cloud, smoking your cigars, reading
a newspaper in a language I can't
understand - in black and white, while
the warblers wail, and the crooners cry,
and every melody melts into primal
guttural screaming.